Schlitterbahn co-owner plagued with financial, legal troubles before murder charge in boy’s death

Schlitterbahn co-owner Jeffrey Wayne Henry sits in court during an extradition hearing Wednesday, March 28, 2018, in the 107th state District Courtroom in Brownsville, Texas. Henry was arrested in Cameron County for charges stemming from a Kansas-based grand jury indictment regarding the 2016 death of a 10-year-old-boy at the Schlitterbahn company's Kansas City waterpark. less

Schlitterbahn co-owner Jeffrey Wayne Henry sits in court during an extradition hearing Wednesday, March 28, 2018, in the 107th state District Courtroom in Brownsville, Texas. Henry was arrested in Cameron ... more

Photo: Jason Hoekema /Associated Press

Photo: Jason Hoekema /Associated Press

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Schlitterbahn co-owner Jeffrey Wayne Henry sits in court during an extradition hearing Wednesday, March 28, 2018, in the 107th state District Courtroom in Brownsville, Texas. Henry was arrested in Cameron County for charges stemming from a Kansas-based grand jury indictment regarding the 2016 death of a 10-year-old-boy at the Schlitterbahn company's Kansas City waterpark. less

Schlitterbahn co-owner Jeffrey Wayne Henry sits in court during an extradition hearing Wednesday, March 28, 2018, in the 107th state District Courtroom in Brownsville, Texas. Henry was arrested in Cameron ... more

Photo: Jason Hoekema /Associated Press

Schlitterbahn co-owner plagued with financial, legal troubles before murder charge in boy’s death

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The criminal arrests in the death of a 10-year-old boy at a Schlitterbahn Waterparks and Resorts park in Kansas City are just the latest in a string of troubles that have plagued the New Braunfels-based amusement park company and its owners in recent years.

Co-owner Jeff Henry has a history of drug arrests and domestic violence accusations. A rift between Henry and his brother and co-owner Gary emerged as the water park group’s founding patriarch lay on his deathbed.

Efforts to expand Schlitterbahn into the Austin area and Florida have been stymied by lack of financing or politics. A Schlitterbahn development on North Padre Island has been mired in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings since last year and is on the auction block to be sold.

Now, Jeff Henry along with two other Schlitterbahn employees, the amusement park group and its private construction firm stand charged in the death of Caleb Schwab, who was decapitated on the Verrückt water slide in Kansas City in 2016.

Jeff Henry was the ride’s mastermind and designer, though he has no formal education in engineering or physics. At 17 stories high, Verrückt was the tallest water slide in the world, certified as such by the Guinness Book of World Records in 2014. According to prosecutors, it was designed to catch the attention of producers at the Travel Channel’s Xtreme Waterparks series and “violated nearly all aspects of longstanding industry safety standards.”

Henry fast-tracked the ride’s development and cut corners from the get-go, according to the indictment. He failed to make key repairs, ignored warnings from his staff and “recklessly” killed Schwab while his executives sought to bury injury records, misled investigators and destroyed key evidence, prosecutors say.

“This child’s death and the rapidly growing list of injuries were foreseeable and expected outcomes,” prosecutors said in the indictment. “Verrückt’s designers and operators knew that Verrückt posed a substantial and unjustifiable risk of death or severe bodily harm.”

Schlitterbahn has aggressively denied the allegations, insisting that the company didn’t alter or hide evidence from law enforcement agents and that it considers safety a core value of its business.

The indictment names Jeff Henry as Verrückt’s “visionary and designer” and John Schooley as the slide’s lead designer, but says neither man possessed technical or engineering credentials needed to build a ride as complex as Verrückt, a German word for “insane” or “crazy.”

“Jeff Henry has designed water park rides the world over,” company spokeswoman Winter Prosapio said in an email. “Nearly every water park that exists today has an attraction or feature based on his designs or ideas.”

Jeff Henry has had an atypical education for a water park executive and ride designer. A 2015 Texas Monthly article described him as a “self-taught savant of water park design.” He has no formal training, having dropped out of high school to work for his father as a teenager, prosecutors say.

He’s also been accused of running projects into the ground with cost overruns and missed deadlines. He has a mercurial personality, at times lashing out at family and business partners. His estranged wife has described him in divorce proceedings as an abusive alcoholic with a bad drug habit.

Turn to Sunday’s front page or click here on ExpressNews.com to read the rest of the article.